February 1st is NID in India

2/1/09

Today was NID in a village about 1 hour away. All along the way the yellow banners were hung wherever we went which advertised for the days event. The village was larger than I expected. We first went to the hospital where Linda will be staying for 2 weeks upon our groups departure. She will be doing massage therapy for some of the children who have been inflicted with Polio. She will stay right at the hospital I think. We took an abbreviated tour. There was a poster hung that said "Save the girl child". When I asked about it I was told with the technology of ultrasounds mothers were finding out the sex of their baby and if it was a girl terminating the pregnancy because the girl child adds nothing to the family unit. The male stays with the family and helps to support it financially. Upon meeting the dignitaries they had us go to a small village to do immunizations for about 30 min. Then we went back to the hospital for a ceremony. They bused in a bunch of kids brought in from the slums for vaccination and had the star cricket player from India there to promote the NID by providing photo ops and having him do the drops as well. After the ceremony we headed to the village where we would spend the day. ½ the group worked the first village & ½ worked in a second village. Sean and I worked together we walked to the 10 different stations that were set up all around the village. They had a hard time understanding why we would want to do the work of immunizations so they had Sean and I just inspecting. Upon returning to the main building we started at they put us all in a room in the back of the building. When Sanjev showed up he asked what was going on. When I said that we haven’t done anything yet he immediately scolded the two guys that were working with us and took us back out to one of the booths off the beaten path and drummed up a ton of children to be vaccinated. So I was able to do quite a lot. It was a powerful feeling and it felt good to know that I was helping to prevent each child from contracting Polio. I was able to save a few vials one for me and one for the incoming District Governor Michael Swinford. Traveling around India you can see the prevalent signs of Polio on the streets where people are hobbling around on their hands because their legs are not working. It is very sad and humbling to see them trying to get around and function in society. Upon returning to the main building 5 girls were off to the side and one of the officials came up to me and asked if I would come over and meet with them as they would really like to meet me. I went over and met with them of course they did not speak English so I just shook their hand, smiled and said Namaste. Then we went back to the hospital. Sean and Kim went to use the facilities while the rest of us went to another building. They ended up taking their own tour of the main floor of the hospital where they said there were rats the size of chipmunks as well as blood stained beds in the hallways. Upon eating lightly we headed out. When we headed for the bus there were about 6 monkeys picking through the trash so I was able to get a picture. Apparently they were eating the trash from our lunch plates that the doctors from the hospital had just throw out on the ground. I couldn’t believe that these educated people would do this. All in all it was a very worthwhile day and I am glad to have been a part of it and I now have a better understanding of how an NID works and how Polio is spread from one person to the next. We are headed to the farm for dinner so I need to run. While we had dinner we got a chance to talk with the doctor and someone who works for WHO(NGO)about the day. They explained that the reason we did not do as much as we thought we would be doing is because the Rotary clubs in India do not do much in the way of hands on just write checks. So they assumed the same from us no hands on. Sanjev did explain that our presence is very powerful and has a huge impact on impressing upon the villages that this is important. So important that we would travel half way around the world to participate in this day. They were very appreciative that we had come. They are looking at doing an NID every 6 weeks. It is tough to determine dates way in advance for as Polio cases crop up they need to incorporate those specific villages with a heavy presence.